


The Suffering of This Mortal Flesh

by TheAlchemistsDaughter



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, cannonical satanism, graphic descriptions of puke and puking but not in a sexy way dear god, minor cuddling for warmth, the gang in the background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 04:20:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17338475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlchemistsDaughter/pseuds/TheAlchemistsDaughter
Summary: Gilfoyle never gets sick, but when he does, he gets pathetic.Gilfoyle gets food poisoning and Dinesh looks after him.





	The Suffering of This Mortal Flesh

 

It takes Dinesh a year to notice, but Gilfoyle is annoyingly healthy. He never gets sick, no matter what he eats or drinks. He lives on the same diet of take-out, energy drinks, and booze as the rest of them, but he never gets so much as a cold. He never gets tired for no reason, never complains of a headache or back pain or repetitive strain in his wrists when by rights he should have all three. The only care Dinesh has ever seen him take of himself is the eye-drops in the bathroom and they’re not prescription. He doesn’t exercise. He sits weirdly. It’s not fair.

Maybe it’s all the apples and cereal. That’s the only thing he does differently. He drinks more than Dinesh but he never even gets a hangover. Maybe he really has sold his soul to Satan. It would explain a lot.

For months, it’s just one more thing for Dinesh to quietly seethe over. Then he is woken at 4:30am by the sound of a body rolling off its bunk and hitting the floor hard in Gilfoyle’s room. They share a wall, the wall right next to Dinesh’s ear. This noise is followed by running footsteps in the hall outside, the bathroom door banging open, and the sound of Gilfoyle throwing up and toilet water splashing.

Dinesh takes a moment to be annoyed by how on top of each other they all live, crammed into this one bungalow, but it is an old grievance and the feeling is dull. Much more exciting is the opportunity to torture Gilfoyle, so even though it is four in the morning and Dinesh has only been asleep for two hours with maybe four left to look forward to, he too rolls himself off his bunk and opens his door.

His bedroom door is directly across the narrow hall from the bathroom, and Gilfoyle has not closed the door behind him. Unless you go all the way in, there isn’t room, and Gilfoyle clearly didn’t make it further than the toilet. With one short step, Dinesh is leaning against the door jamb in boxers and a T-shirt, arms and legs folded, lording it over Gilfoyle’s hunched back. His face is in the toilet and his hair has fallen over his shoulders. He’s wearing nothing but some grey sweatpants that were probably black once. His bare back looks ghostly white in the dark and Dinesh can see the bumps of his spine and the wings of his shoulder blades. That dumb upside-down cross tattoo is facing him, lying on its side on the toilet seat. Dinesh flicks the lights on, dazzling them both, and Gilfoyle groans.

“So it’s finally happened. You’re finally sick.”

Gilfoyle throws up again, drowning out the end of Dinesh’s gloating with retches, and he hears it hit the water. Dinesh wrinkles his nose in disgust. He must really be sick. Dinesh knows Gilfoyle would probably rather choke on his vomit than expel it in front of him.

“Converting to the church of the porcelain god now?”

Movement; and a pale shaky hand pushes through the curtain of hair to flip him off with a pale shaky finger.

Dinesh grins and squats down, almost bouncing on his heels with delight. “What do you think it was? That shrimp lo mein? The fourth red bull? Or maybe that pizza you had for lunch that had been in the fridge since Monday?”

Gilfoyle groans again. There is a burp, his shoulders jump, and a splash. He spits. “Fuck off,” he mumbles.

Dinesh smiles wider. “Oh, you don’t like thinking about that? About food? Yeah, I have to admit, it didn’t smell right. Do you remember how it smelled, Gilfoyle? Kind of sweet, but also kind of-”

He is cut off as Gilfoyle heaves again, coughing for breath, his hands – still with rings on, so he sleeps in them, the poser – gripping the toilet like he is trying not to fall in.

“There, there,” Dinesh almost sings, remembering all the times Gilfoyle tormented him when he was hungover. “I for one am comforted by this evidence that you’re human after all, and I’m not sharing the house with the Devil’s animated cumsock like I thought.”

Gilfoyle turns his head just enough to find a gap in his hair to glare through. He is not wearing his glasses. Dinesh can count on one hand the number of times he has seen Gilfoyle without those magnifying lenses distorting the proportions of his face, and it unsettles him. He doesn’t like it when Gilfoyle looks human instead of like a cave-dwelling tech-goblin who hasn’t seen the sun in three generations.

Dinesh stands back up. “Well, it’s four AM and I’m going back to bed. It stinks in here. Have fun. You’ve got puke in your hair.”

He turns and goes back to his room, closing the door behind him and climbing back into bed with the warm glow of knowing Gilfoyle is suffering.

He is woken in the morning by Richard rapping a drum roll on the bathroom door. It is 7:30. Dinesh hates this fucking house.

“C’mon, open up!” Richard frets, his knuckles vibrating against the wood when Dinesh gets up to go have a look. Richard is dancing from one foot to the other.

“He’s still in there? It’s been hours.” Dinesh sighs and shoulders past him. “Open the fucking door, Gilfoyle. I know you’re sick and it’s an easy mistake to make, but that toilet is not your mother so stop fucking hugging it. Though just like your mother, it won’t love you back. There’s a line of men here who need to use it, also just like your mother.”

“Don’t talk about my fucking mother,” Gilfoyle’s voice wavers from the other side, slurred and rough. “I hate my fucking mother.”

Erlich stomps up to the door to take his turn. “Gilfoyle, open this fucking door or I’ll break it down and you can all watch me shit, I don’t care!”

“Ew, Erlich! What the fuck?” says Richard.

“It’s my house!”

“Come on, Gilfoyle…” Dinesh tries again. There is a click as the door unlocks. Richard tries to get in, but the door hits Gilfoyle in the leg where he is still knelt in front of the toilet. It stinks of puke. Dinesh can see sweat shining on Gilfoyle’s back, and he is shivering, his shoulder blades clattering like cymbals. Dinesh can’t see his face, but he can hear his breathing it’s so fast and ragged.

He pushes past the others. “Time to get up, girl from _The Exorcist_.” He grabs Gilfoyle around the ribs and tries to get him on his feet, but Gilfoyle stretches like a cat and his hands don’t leave the toilet as he moans his objection. This is pathetic. His skin is chilled and slick under Dinesh’s palms and Dinesh makes a face as some of that sweat transfers to the belly of his T-shirt.

“Her name was Reagan, and if I was demonically possessed I’d feel a lot better.” Gilfoyle is gasping like there’s a hole in him. “You’ll regret this. If you move me, I’ll-” He is seized by a coughing fit that has him leaning back over the toilet bowl, but it produces nothing. Dinesh takes this as a sign that, as gross as Gilfoyle is right now, he is safe to be moved without following through on his threat to puke on them. He bends down, grabs Gilfoyle’s wrist, slings his arm over his shoulders, and hoists him up, ignoring his weak struggles.

“Oh, man, you stink,” Dinesh complains as he forces Gilfoyle out of the bathroom. “You’re so gross, don’t breathe on me, urgh.” He gets them into the corridor and Erlich takes over the bathroom, slamming the door in Richard’s face.

At his indignant shout, Erlich shouts through: “Piss outside!”

Richard shuffles off, presumably to do just that, muttering under his breath.

Gilfoyle is not quite a dead weight on Dinesh’s shoulder, but carrying him is like trying to keep a heavy pole upright using only a string tied around his neck. He is still shivering, and Dinesh thinks of the rattle of a cockroach settling its wings. “Come on,” he says, getting a better grip with an arm around Gilfoyle’s soft and sticky waist, trying very very hard not to touch any body hair. “Let’s get you back to bed.” Gilfoyle sways into him and Dinesh uses the momentum to get them walking back into Gilfoyle’s room.

The covers on the bunk are trailing almost to the ground. They and the sheets are black, there is a big black mural of a pentagram with a goat’s head in red pinned to the wall. Necklaces and charms hang from the bed post and there are posters for deathcore bands Dinesh has never heard. Other than that, every surface is covered in tech: wires, motherboards, microchips, soldering irons…

Dinesh is panting under Gilfoyle’s weight, and he realises there is no way he can lift him up to his bunk. Even if Gilfoyle could get up there by himself, it wouldn’t be safe when he will throw himself out of it to try to make it to the bathroom before he pukes. Dinesh makes a snap decision before he collapses, and uses what strength he has left to stagger Gilfoyle to the living room couch, the one Gilfoyle usually sits on when they play video games. He unhooks his arm from around his shoulders and dumps him there.

Gilfoyle shivers and curls up. He has long bony feet and hairy toes. His arms fold up between his knees and his chest like some kind of bog mummy. He is as white as the belly of a shark, purple bags under his eyes, his hair dark with sweat. His lips have faded to nothing, and his beard stands out against his waxy skin, like artificial bristles driven into the face of a dummy. He turns his eyes up to Dinesh and says nothing, he just lies there and rattles, suffering, waiting to see if Dinesh will help or hurt him.

Dinesh sighs. See, this is why he is a better person than Gilfoyle, he thinks as he turns back to Gilfoyle’s room. He has compassion, sympathy, a fucking _soul_. He can’t leave anyone, even Gilfoyle, to freeze and puke all over themselves on a couch. Gilfoyle would probably leave him outside, or balance open soda cans on him, or fart in his face if the tables were turned, but Dinesh, sucker that he is, is a better person nonetheless.

He pulls Gilfoyle’s covers off his bed and throws them over his shoulder in a waft of Gilfoyle-smell that makes him struggle not to think of dicks and come and farts, then grabs his pillow. He takes the liner out of his metal bin and leaves it on the floor, then takes the bin and everything else back to the living room. Gilfoyle sees him coming and raises his head a little. It makes Dinesh think of a sick dog wagging its tail, and he avoids Gilfoyle’s stupid normal eyes as he drops the bin in front of Gilfoyle’s head.

“Puke in that,” he says, then he drags the blankets off his shoulder and flaps them over Gilfoyle like he’s laying a table cloth. Last he moves to stuff the pillow under his head, but Gilfoyle takes it and does it himself, one hand making a fist in the black blob. He looks different with forty percent of his face sunk into the pillow, his shoulders and eyes bare. He looks so fucking soft, even if he does currently have the complexion of Nosferatu. Gilfoyle shivers again and Dinesh leans over him, stabbing the blanket down between Gilfoyle’s bare skin and the back of the sofa, making sure he’s tucked in.

“Why are you doing this?” Gilfoyle asks, staring at him.

“Because I want to fucking shower today and I’m not pissing outside like Richard.” With that he spins on his heel and goes back to his room, where he has to wait with nothing to do for his turn in the bathroom.

He gets washed and dressed, and feels guilty about eating his breakfast when he should enjoy rubbing it in Gilfoyle’s face, even while he dangles over the edge of the couch, heaving dribbles of bile into his bin. Dinesh leaves his dishes in the sink and goes to stand over Gilfoyle, hands planted on his hips. Gilfoyle ignores him, clutching the blanket tighter around his neck as he continues to shiver and shake, staring sightlessly forwards.

“You need to take your mind off it,” he says. Gilfoyle rolls his eyes up to look at him and it seems to take a lot of effort. “Wanna play Halo?”

Gilfoyle shakes his head and closes his eyes. He looks miserable as fuck. Only part of Dinesh enjoys it. He looks in the bin. There’s not a lot in there, barely an inch of fluid, but what’s floating about in the spit is a toxic shade of yellow.

“Wanna watch something?”

Gilfoyle opens his eyes again and Dinesh thinks he has his interest. He looks almost hopeful, as much as Gilfoyle can display any emotion.

“What do you want? Do you have anything on your laptop?”

“Don’t touch my laptop,” he whispers, his teeth knocking together. Dinesh will have to do something about that.

Dinesh sighs. “What do you want?” he asks again.

Gilfoyle blinks, his eyes dodging around. Dinesh doesn’t know if that means he knows what he wants or he doesn’t.

“What?”

Gilfoyle resettles his head on the pillow, the movement covering his muttered answer.

“What?” Dinesh demands. He doesn’t have time for this pussy shit, he’s trying to be nice here.

Gilfoyle repeats himself at the same self-conscious volume, but he holds still so Dinesh hears it this time. “Daria.”

“Daria?” Dinesh confirms, his eyes wide as he looks down at Gilfoyle, who nods. “Fucking Daria. Unbelievable.” He goes to get his laptop and download the first season.

“I need my glasses,” Gilfoyle calls after him, his voice just making it to his normal speaking volume.

Dinesh detours to Gilfoyle’s room, cursing himself out for making himself Gilfoyle’s fucking servant – fucking _Gilfoyle_ – as he searches for the glasses, finding them folded on the mattress. He brings them and his laptop back to the living room, waiting while Gilfoyle works one pale arm out from under the blanket to take the glasses and put them on. They skew as soon as he lowers his head back to the pillow and Gilfoyle tries to reposition himself. Dinesh lets him sort that out while he casts the first episode onto the TV then goes to the kitchen and brings back a big glass of water.

He holds it out to Gilfoyle. “Drink this, motherfucker.”

“I’ll just throw it up.”

“Yeah, but at this rate you’re going to dehydrate to nothing. I don’t need you throwing up from that too. Just sip it. At least you’ll have something to puke out, instead of rupturing your stomach from dry-heaving.”

Gilfoyle takes the water, looking more himself with his glasses on. “Didn’t know you cared.”

“I can stop and leave you to die.”

Gilfoyle starts the process of rolling over enough to sip the water without spilling any and doesn’t say anything.

Dinesh sits on the floor and starts the show. He’s heard of it but never seen it before. Five minutes in, he looks at Gilfoyle and says “You want to fuck this cartoon chick.”

“She gets me,” Gilfoyle replies, his breathing speeding up as he groans and rolls to lean over the edge of the sofa and expel the couple of mouthfuls of water he’s just ingested into the bin next to Dinesh. Dinesh makes a face. Gilfoyle collapses back on the pillow, shivering violently as his breathing slows back down.

Dinesh eyes him. “You’re really that cold?”

Gilfoyle doesn’t reply, he just closes his eyes.

Knowing he’s going to get shit for this later, Dinesh stands. “Up,” he orders, gesturing with his hands and making to sit down. As Gilfoyle gets out of his way, wincing, Dinesh slips under his head and shoulders where the pillow was and drops an arm over the blanket where it covers Gilfoyle’s chest, the weight of it dropping him back down. Gilfoyle squirms, what Dinesh imagines must constitute as him fighting in his weakened state.

“I’m warmer than you are, dipshit, and we don’t have any hot water bottles or those microwavable bean things. This is California. We don’t have external sources of heat here. So just… Shut the hell up and take it.”

Gilfoyle hesitates, then slowly lowers his head to Dinesh’s thigh, facing the TV. He tries a few times, lifting and resettling, but he discovers his glasses stay on straight when the leg is between Dinesh’s thighs, so he eventually relaxes. His shivers come harder, more like shudders that shake his whole body, but they grow shorter and further apart until he is still. His whole body softens under the blanket and under Dinesh’s arm. His shoulder presses against Dinesh’s thigh. The episodes are on autoplay.

Dinesh had forgotten Gilfoyle was shirtless under his dumb black edgelord blanket. He’s hyper aware of it now. They aren’t touching skin-to-skin but still. He’s getting Gilfoyle shoulder sweat on his jeans.

“Have you slept?” he asks.

He feels Gilfoyle press his cheek into his thigh, a no.

“You should sleep.”

“So you can take advantage of me?”

“There are infinite worlds in our ever-expanding universe, and not a single one considers having you in their lap an advantage.”

“You love it,” he replies, yawning. It’s weak by Gilfoyle’s standards, but now that he is finally warm, it seems his lost sleep is catching up to him, and seconds later he has gone quiet, his eyes are closed, and his breathing is slow and steady.

Dinesh looks down at his face. He has hair in his mouth. Dinesh considers taking it out, but if Gilfoyle feels him touching his face, he’ll never live it down. Still, it’s annoying. The end flutters with every breath. Fuck it, if he wakes up, Dinesh can just take his water away and leave him on the sofa to die. Slowly, softly, he pulls the marauding hair back along Gilfoyle’s hairline, inadvertently freeing his face of any cover. Now he’s just sitting here with Gilfoyle sleeping in his lap. Fuck. He can’t get up, he just has to watch this shitty show about a moody teenage white girl.

Richard walks in and stops suddenly at the sight of them. He looks around as if for an explanation, but no one else is there. He knows it’s too late to retreat. Dinesh stares him down. It’s all he can do while he’s pinned like this.

“What- Er, what-” Richard makes a face, shakes his head, puts his hands on his hips and looks at the floor while he finds the words. “Shouldn’t you be working?”

“I’m calling in sick.” Gilfoyle’s head is surprisingly heavy. Dinesh wants to shift his knee a little but he’s afraid it will wake him. His leg is going numb. Is he going to have a bruise? Fucking great. As if sensing his thoughts, Gilfoyle moves his hand onto his knee under the blanket. Fuck fuck fuck. Something tightens in Dinesh’s belly. Oh no you fucking don’t.

“Are you?” Richard asks, that nervy little thread of ‘pissed off’ in his voice.

“Yeah.”

“Wh-What’s wrong with you?” He blinks a lot.

Dinesh looks back to the TV, thinking, then he looks back at Richard. “Migraine. Migraine aura. It affects my vision. I can’t see, like, the edges right now? There’s no way I can work. I’d be coding all over the place.”

He and Richard hold each other’s eyes in a staring contest. Richard breaks first, shaking his head and throwing his hands up and walking away. Dinesh suspects he’s going to find Jared and complain to him, and Jared will come and talk Dinesh into working. They might have a couple of hours though. He looks down at Gilfoyle again, straightening another strand of hair. He could be handsome if he wasn’t so gross, and so Gilfoyle. He’s still wearing his glasses. That must be uncomfortable for sleeping, but Dinesh isn’t going to try taking them off. Gilfoyle would definitely wake up then, and he needs to sleep.

Dinesh watches the TV.

Two hours later, Gilfoyle flails awake and just manages to centre his face over the bin before regurgitating whatever slime has built up in his stomach since he’s last emptied it. It isn’t much, and with Gilfoyle’s chest now pressing against his thigh, Dinesh can feel how Gilfoyle’s torso turns to stone with every hack, his muscles determined to scrape the barrel of his stomach for every last offending smear. His glasses slide down his nose and Dinesh lunges to catch them before they fall into the slurry. He puts them on the armrest of the sofa and reaches forward to hold Gilfoyle’s hair out of the firing line. The tips are wet, some of them stiff with earlier puke that’s dried already. Dinesh grimaces.

When he’s finished, Gilfoyle takes his glasses back with trembling hands, and puts them back on slowly. With everything below his shoulders under the blanket, he looks like some kind of hermit crab. Now it’s his dumb pentagram tattoo that’s facing Dinesh. He blinks at him, then collapses with a heavy exhale back onto Dinesh’s thigh, fidgeting to get comfortable again. Dinesh leans over him and retrieves the glass of water from the floor, putting it into Gilfoyle’s hand. Now he’s just been sick, logically the water will have the longest time in his stomach before the next time.

As Gilfoyle sips, Dinesh says “You need to tie your hair back, man.”

“My hair ties are all in my room.”

Dinesh huffs a put-upon sigh and moves Gilfoyle off his lap like he’s moving a pet. He goes back to Gilfoyle’s room and comes back with a black elastic. He holds it out and Gilfoyle takes it, scraping his hair back into a ponytail that makes his magnified eyes even more prominent. Sweat glistens under his chest hair between his pecs where it hasn’t dried. It occurs to Dinesh Gilfoyle must have puke in his beard and he goes to get the roll of kitchen towels, running one under the tap.

“Wash your face,” he says as he hands it over, and Gilfoyle shoots him a glare but he does as he’s told. Then he screws the napkin up and drops it in the bin, pulling another off the roll and blowing his nose.

“How do you feel? Better after sleeping?”

Gilfoyle pauses and meets Dinesh’s eyes for a second before starting again. “Considering I’m blowing stomach acid and shrimp lo mein out of my nose,” – _blow_ – “I feel a little better.” That napkin joins its predecessor in the bin. “But I still feel like shit.”

Dinesh queues up the second season of _Daria_ and starts it, because Gilfoyle hardly got to watch any of it but Dinesh is not rewatching the episodes Gilfoyle slept through, then retakes his seat on the sofa. Gilfoyle lowers his head back to Dinesh’s thigh, so he guesses they’re still doing that. A fine tremor vibrates through Gilfoyle, then he settles.

“Why is Satan punishing me?” he wonders.

“I think traditionally that’s what he does,” Dinesh replies. “You know, in hell.”

“That’s just the Christian church’s threat to keep the masses- I’m not arguing about this with you now. I’ll enlighten you when my strength returns.” He yawns, and watches the show.

They argue over who would be a better girlfriend, Jane or Daria. Gilfoyle tries to say something about what Quinn symbolises, but he runs out of steam and gives up.

Jared appears on the threshold, obviously looking for them.

In Dinesh’s lap, Gilfoyle simply says “Not Jared.”

“What?” Dinesh asks, looking down, but Gilfoyle’s eyes are closed and his breathing is slow like he’s asleep.

“Ah, Dinesh, how is Gilfoyle?” Jared says solicitously, bending over them with his hands clasped in front of his green fleece zip-up body-warmer.

“He’s sick,” Dinesh nods. “Food poisoning.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh. And you?”

“I’m f- I have a migraine aura,” he remembers just in time.

Jared looks concerned. It’s a very practiced look. “I’m sorry to hear that. Would you like to lie down? I can look after Gilfoyle while you rest.”

Under the blanket, Gilfoyle pinches a fold of denim just at the bottom corner of Dinesh’s knee and tugs it back and forth quickly.

“Uh, no thank you, Jared, I’ve got it.”

“Are you sure? There’s no need to strain yourself. It’s better you recover quickly. You know, I read an article about a fascinating study-”

“I got it. No need to waste a healthy person on Gilfoyle! We’ll look after each other, you know, he can be my eyes… when he’s awake… and I’ll be his… stomach. Really, I got it.” He smiles.

Jared retreats. “Well, alright, if you’re sure. I could run to the store if you need anything, medicine or-”

“Actually, fuck, yeah, you know what? You _could_ go to the store. Get, uh, sports drinks, with electrolytes, and uh, popsicles, those push-up kind. And any kind of anti-puking drugs they have.”

Under the blanket, Gilfoyle tugs on his jeans again.

Jared beams. “Okay, I’ll be right back.” He disappears.

Gilfoyle pushes himself up on his hands in order to glare at Dinesh. “What the fuck was that? I said _not_ Jared.”

“You need sugar, and liquids, and drugs. Jared going saves me a trip.”

“Why would you go?” Gilfoyle blinks at him.

“Er…” Dinesh doesn’t know why Gilfoyle thinks that strange, when he let Gilfoyle sleep in his lap, and got his sweat on his clothes. “Because you can’t? And someone has to?”

Gilfoyle stares at him for a long moment, and Dinesh is so confused. Finally, Gilfoyle just grunts and lies back down, leaving Dinesh to blink and shake it off.

“Is that weird?” he asks.

“I’m tired,” Gilfoyle says to shut him up. Dinesh lets it. They watch _Daria_.

Erlich makes lunch, watching them through the serving window. Dinesh watches him back, daring him to say something, and nervous in case he does. As far as he can tell, Gilfoyle can’t see him over the top of the TV.

Finally, Erlich says “I’m not buying you a double bed if you start fucking,” takes a bite of his sandwich, and walks away.

Gilfoyle doesn’t say anything, and Dinesh waits too long for his reaction to say anything himself. Awkward, because they are _not_ fucking. Dinesh is _not_ gay, and even if he was, he would have better taste than fucking _Gilfoyle_. Gilfoyle though is probably gay. Or not gay, because of Tara, but… He’s not exactly the type to limit himself, with his Satanist “Do what thou wilt” compersion shit. Yeah, Dinesh could see Gilfoyle fucking another guy. He’s probably been to so many orgies he doesn’t even know who he’s fucked.

“Chill out, Dinesh,” he drones in his lap.

“You chill out, _Gilfoyle_.”

Gilfoyle rolls off his thighs to puke into the bin beside Dinesh’s foot. The strength of the contractions in Gilfoyle’s torso actually scare Dinesh, and he can’t resist rubbing circles into Gilfoyle’s back between those sharp shoulder blades.

It’s at that moment that Jared returns and Dinesh accepts the shopping bag with his free hand while Gilfoyle coughs over the bin. Jared watches as if it’s something beautiful.

“May I just say how heartening it is to see you caring for one another?”

Gilfoyle can’t breathe, let alone speak, but he flips him off.

“Thanks, Jared, see you later,” Dinesh says, and Jared recognises the cue for what it is and leaves, mumbling.

Dinesh unwraps a popsicle as Gilfoyle comes back, rolling onto his back to catch his breath.

“Eat this.”

“No.”

“Fucking eat it or I’ll jam it down your throat and it can melt in your stomach. Maybe if I put it in sidewise it will actually stay in there.” Gilfoyle tries to stare him down but Dinesh raises his eyebrows and says “Oh you think you can fight me? You think you can intimidate me? I can see your nipples, you don’t intimidate me.”

He thrusts out the popsicle and Gilfoyle takes it begrudgingly. “And I can see your boner but you don’t hear me commenting.”

“What-?! I don’t-! I don’t have a _boner_!” He whispers the last word, not wanting anyone else in the house to hear and get the wrong idea.

“You looked though.” Gilfoyle says, watching him as he licks the tip of the popsicle. The effect is damaged by the shivers that start up in his shoulders, and he pulls the blanket back up.

Dinesh digs out a Gatorade and hands it to Gilfoyle, taking the popsicle. “Start with that instead, and then I’ve got pills you can take in here. Or Pepto Bismal, if you think that would be better?”

Gilfoyle swigs from the bottle of Gatorade and winces. “This tastes like distilled industrial run-off.”

“It probably is,” Dinesh commiserates.

“Give me the Pepto, I can pretend it’s a blood sacrifice to the Dark Lord, maybe he’ll cure me.”

“A blood sacrifice? Of what? A Barbie?” Dinesh says, but he pours out a shot into the cap and hands it to him.

Gilfoyle toasts the carpet solemnly and knocks it back. “If I puke pink, I’m blaming you.”

“Yeah, that would totally ruin your image, you’d have to leave town.” The layer of frost on the outside of the popsicle’s cardboard sleeve has melted in his hand so he switches it to the other and wipes it off on his thigh. Now he’s got this fucking popsicle that he’s just holding like an idiot. He can’t eat it, not when Gilfoyle’s already licked it and he’s been throwing up all day. Gilfoyle can’t eat it without shivering. Fuck. He digs in the plastic bag for the box of six and takes a fresh one for himself, then stands the box up on the floor with the open popsicle standing up in the empty slot. If it melts, it melts. Gilfoyle can just drink it.

He eats his popsicle, Gilfoyle sips his Gatorade, and they watch TV. Gilfoyle makes it a full thirty minutes before spewing a rainbow of pink and blueish-greenish-yellow into the bin. It feels perfunctory this time, the movement less savage, and he goes right back to the Gatorade without comment. It’s an improvement.

At the end of the episode, Dinesh gets up to make lunch. While he’s in the kitchen, he gathers all the leftovers he can find in a trash bag and takes it to the bins outside. There’ll be an uproar, but one look at Gilfoyle should convince anyone it was the right thing to do. The fridge is practically empty now. He collects Gilfoyle’s bin, and he whimpers as it’s taken away.

“I need that,” he says.

“I’ll bring it back.” He flushes the disgusting contents down the toilet then rinses the bin with hot water and bleach before setting it back before Gilfoyle. “You want an apple?”

Gilfoyle seems to perk up a little at that idea, as if the Gatorade has given him some energy back, so Dinesh goes back to the kitchen and cuts an apple into eighths on a plate. He puts it within Gilfoyle’s reach on the floor and says “Don’t eat it all at once.”

Gilfoyle takes a slice and absorbs it into the blanket, the tip poking out now and then to be nibbled on. Dinesh thinks this must be what it’s like to have children.

“What now?” Dinesh asks, looking at the TV. He is not excited by the prospect of more _Daria_.

“I’ll watch you play Halo.”

Dinesh resumes his seat, Gilfoyle lying over his thighs crunching on his slice of apple, and plays. Gilfoyle backseat drives and Dinesh forces two popsicles on him. They argue. Gilfoyle throws up again then falls asleep, this time snoring softly, and he’s out for almost three hours. It’s a new record for not throwing up. When he wakes up, he’s groggy, but thirsty, and drinks without being prompted. Dinesh gets him a box of his cereal to eat dry and it seems to stay down, though Gilfoyle doesn’t eat more than a handful. Dinesh gets him a sweater, but Gilfoyle doesn’t give up the blanket or their position on the sofa after he puts it on. He watches Dinesh play more video games, drinking Gatorade and eating sludgy popsicles, brown apple slices and dry cereal. They argue.

By nine PM, Dinesh is exhausted. His eyes are dry and itchy, his thumbs are sore from gaming, his ass is numb from sitting in the same position, pinned by Gilfoyle for hours. He got hardly any sleep the night before, and he hasn’t had nearly enough caffeine. When he yawns again for the umpteenth time, Gilfoyle pushes up and looks at him from far too close, his eyes too big behind those fishbowl glasses.

“What?” Dinesh says.

Gilfoyle studies him for a moment longer before saying “Yeah, okay, I’m done.” He stands and wraps the blanket around his hunched shoulders. “I’m going to bed. See ya.” He drifts away.

Dinesh stares after him, momentarily at a loss for words. That was it? He watches Gilfoyle’s bedroom door close and assumes it is. After all that, not even a thank you. He scrubs a hand over his face. It’s kind of anti-climactic. He turns off the game and stretches. He can go to bed himself now. He takes himself off to the bathroom.

It’s fucking early but he’s so tired he sleeps anyway and when he wakes up in the morning it seems to be business as usual. Gilfoyle appears dressed in the same sweats and pullover he went to bed in, still pale and fragile, but he very tentatively eats breakfast, and he brushes his teeth, and shortly after noon he showers. He doesn’t come out of his room for another two hours after that and Dinesh thinks he’s taking a nap, but when he comes out he’s dressed in fresh clothes and sticks all his bedding in the washing machine. He smells normal again and sits down at his workstation as if nothing happened.

For a minute, Dinesh just watches him. Maybe it makes him an idiot, but he expects something. A thank you. Anything.

Jared walks in. “Ah, Gilfoyle, how nice to see you feeling yourself again!”

Gilfoyle grunts. It’s staggering how nothing has changed.

“Of course, with Dinesh’s tender nursing, it was only a matter of time!” He laughs and wrings his hands.

“Don’t call it that,” Dinesh says, embarrassed.

“Anyway, I hope you suitably expressed your gratitude, Gilfoyle.”

“He knows,” Gilfoyle says, sounding bored, looking at his screen and deleting something.

Jared looks at Dinesh for confirmation. Dinesh opens and closes his mouth, then he gets it together. He scoffs, raising a shoulder. “Yeah, I know.”

“Excellent!” Jared says happily. He beams at them, looking back and forth between them though Gilfoyle doesn’t turn around. Jared makes a happy squeal. “Friendship is so beautiful!” He holds his hands out to either of them. “You. Are. Beautiful.” Then he spins and hurries out, possibly to find Richard.

Dinesh swivels slowly to look at the back of Gilfoyle’s head.

“Don’t fucking say anything,” he says. “It was your choice. I am beholden to no man.”

“Uh-huh.”

Gilfoyle sighs through his nose. He glances over his shoulder but he doesn’t hold Dinesh’s eyes. “Thanks.”

Dinesh turns slowly back to his screen, feeling like at last, _at last_ the ball is in his court. “Uh-huh,” he replies.

“You’re going to be insufferable about this, aren’t you?”

“Oh, you bet your ass.”

 

 


End file.
